“‘Sobriété, Chic, Discrétion’: Promoting Modern Jewelry and Accessories in Adam: La revue de l’homme, 1925-1940” by Simon Bliss is a fascinating “case study” on the promotion of jewelry and accessories in interwar France. This is an under-researched area, especially with regard to men’s jewelry and accessories. Anyone interested in the history of fashion periodicals will also appreciate the author’s focus on Adam, which presented “a particular view of masculinity in dress as something that is subject to constant vigilance.”
Katrina Sark and Sara Arnold write on the “Fashion Activism of Extinction Rebellion and Fashion Act Now.” They examine their decentralized, nonhierarchical structures that use “nonviolent direct action (NDA) and civil disobedience” to raise public awareness around climate change and un-sustainability. Some of these strategies differ from the better known concept of “Do It Yourself” to become “Do It Together,” tapping into the longer tradition of clothing as protest via figures such as fashion designer Katharine Hamnett. The new fashion activists do not create clothing that can be sold as a commodity, nor are new materials used. Nudity becomes significant, connecting this form of protest to other traditions of women’s art and feminist performance art. This article provides the first detailed timeline of various recent boycotts, protests, lobbying and acts of “defashioning,” that argue for “regenerative clothing systems based on wellbeing and ecology.”
The kimono market in Japan has been shrinking since the 1980s, but in recent years, it has been revitalized. Saskia Thoelen explores one important aspect of this phenomenon in her excellent article, “Revitalizing Meisen Kimono in Chichibu through Storytelling – Craft, Community, and Sense-Making.” Focusing on a case study of a weaving studio, she demonstrates how craftspeople have used stories “to develop new insights” into the meanings of kimono. Working with others in the community, notably the Chichibu Meisen Museum, they are helping to make kimono more relevant and “supporting the development of the kimono boom into a sustainable return to kimono wearing.”
Ines Kaivonen, Nina Mesiranta and Elina Närvänen continue the theme of fashion and ecological activisms with their article “‘I Do What I Want to Drive Change’: The Social-Symbolic Work of Sustainable Fashion Influencers.” Sustainable Fashion Influencers (SFIs) work across three themes identified by the researchers: “identity work,” “community work,” and “practice work.” They use Finland as the basis of the study, where the secondhand fashion market has surged by nearly 150% since 2015. Their research highlights the completely different fashion landscape we inhabit in an era of social media, and the complex role played by SFIs who generally work outside the commercial realm.
¡Moda Hoy! Latin American and Latinx Fashion Today was “a pioneering show for Latin(x) American curatorial history,” writes Edward Salazar Celis. The exhibition, curated by Tanya Melendez-Escalante and Melissa Marra-Alvarez, opened with two ensembles which “successfully suggested that Latinidad is a polysemic category and its design tropes are hybrid and baroque.” After recognizing “the commendable work of The Museum at FIT in diversifying its fashion archive,” he observes that “the exhibition mirrored the growing conversation regarding decentering fashion.” Most “cohesive” were the sections on politics, gender, art, and popular culture, while the sections on sustainability, Indigenous heritage, elegance, and craftsmanship were characterized by “problematic issues of Latinidad,” such as its “Eurocentric legacy.”
“What does contemporary African fashion look like? And what is its historical significance?” asks Rachel Lifter in her thoughtful review of Africa Fashion. The exhibition was developed by Christine Checinska at the Victoria & Albert Museum, later traveling to the Brooklyn Museum, where it was expanded and modified by Ernestine White-Mifetu and Annissa Malvoisin. At the V&A, the exhibition focused on the “African creatives” and the “African fashion scene” today. Significantly, most pieces “were purchased by the V&A in 2021 or 2022.” By contrast, “the Brooklyn Museum presents a story of African and African-Diasporic creativity as shaped through a transhistorical (fashion) lens.” Lifter concludes: “Both iterations of Africa Fashion are excellent,” while also revealing “different curatorial motivations and exhibition narratives.” The exhibition will now travel to the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia, which has a growing diasporic African community.
Todd Robinson reviews the edited book “Fashion and Feeling: the Affective Politics of Dress” (2023) by Roberto Filipello and Ilya Parkins. Robinson elegantly describes the book as about “the intersection of fashion and the feeling body.” He points to an excellent essay by Lucia Ruggerone, “Fashion Studies at the Turning Point,” as well as papers on Japanese Manga, fashion and the stain, queer stitching, and decolonial beading.
Our theme of embodied fashion concludes with a book review by Tamara Tomić-Vajagić of Eric C. Mullis’ “Instruments of Embodiment: Costuming in Contemporary Dance.” Studies of performance costume are undergoing a global surge at the moment, in some ways paralleling the earlier take-off of Fashion Studies. Mullis brings a perspective as a dancer, dance-maker and design-researcher to craft a book that crosses topics from the Ballets Russes to Merce-Cunningham/John Cage, Rei Kawakubo, and Native American dancer Verna Street. The reviewer commends the writer’s skill in combining “practice-research writing” with “philosophical, historical, and structural analyses of others’ embodied testimonies.”
Valerie Steele and Peter McNeil